Canoe Capsize Practice

Always wear your life jacket to be ready for an occasional dunking when you go canoeing. Look forward to a few capsizes during your canoeing trips. This is great refreshing fun. The more you practice the capsize drill the better you'll be prepared for when it happens unexpectedly. Beginners should choose a piece of calm, sheltered water.

Practice Fully Clothed

For a realistic capsize drill you and your friends should be fully clothed. Wear a jogging suit for extra weight and as protection against bruising.

Practice swimming in these clothes before you go canoeing, perhaps as part of a man-over-board exercise.

You'll find it an interesting challenge to climb back into a canoe wearing a lot of heavy waterlogged clothes.

How far can you lean over?

Try out how stable your canoe is. Lean over slowly. See how far you can go and bring the boat upright again. Next time lean over a bit further.

Carefully get a feel how far you can go before you capsize.

This is an exciting game. The anticipation of falling into the water at any moment can be quite a teasing thrill, especially while your clothes are still dry. See how long you can balance at the brink of falling in.

Balancing Act

A fun variation of this game is to play it with a friend. Lean out to both sides and see who can last the longest. When one lets go, you both fall in as the boat capsized towards whoever held on the longest.

Splash

Suddenly the boat tips over and you all get wet. Your soaked clothes slow down your movements and feel very different (quite good usually). Get used to wearing clothes in the water and learn to handle it.

When your boat capsizes, don't panic. It can be flipped back over. Over-turned boats float. First, make sure that all friends are safe and happy before attempting to retrieve equipment. Stay with your boat unless you judge that doing so will be dangerous.

Getting Out

In calm waters, angle your way up to shore instead of pushing straight for it. Stay behind the boat, and hold onto it for flotation. If you can stay with the canoe you can guide it into quiet water. Stay at the upstream end of the canoe so that if the canoe becomes pinned, you don't. If possible hold on to your paddle, you'll need it later.

Don't try to swim in rapids. Float in your life jacket on your back, with your feet downstream. Repeat the capsize drill until you're fairly exhausted so you get a good idea what an emergency would feel like. Stay near the beach so you can take quick breaks.